2010 - 30.4% of 15-24year olds are Casually Employed

Nonregular employees accounted for 30.4 percent of workers aged 15 to 24 in calender 2010, up 0.4 percentage point from the previous year, the government said Tuesday.

While last year's overall jobless rate stood at 5.1 percent, unchanged from 2009, the unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 19 rose to 9.8 from 9.6 percent, while the rate for those aged 20 to 24 expanded to 9.1 from 9.0 percent, according to a white paper on children and the young approved by the Cabinet.

The number of so-called young freeters — part-timers who frequently switch jobs — aged 15 to 34 increased for the second year running to about 1.83 million, the paper said.

It also reported that child counseling centers nationwide received a record 44,211 inquiries over child abuse in fiscal 2009 through March 2010, up 3.6 percent from the previous fiscal year.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20110608a3.html

April - Jobless Rate Rises 1st time in 6 months to 4.7%

Japan's unemployment rate in April rose for the first time in six months, while the nation's factory output posted a weaker-than-expected rebound amid sluggish output following the March earthquake and tsunami.


The April jobless rate climbed to 4.7 percent from the March unemployment rate of 4.6 percent, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said Tuesday.

The number of jobless people in Japan stood at 3.09 million in April, down 300,000 from a year earlier, the ministry said.

Japan's industrial output in April rose 1.0 percent from the previous month, recovering from a record 15.5 percent drop in March, the government said.

But factory output — a key barometer of Japan's economic health — posted a weaker-than-expected rebound as economists forecast a 2.2 percent output increase on average in a Kyodo News survey.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110531/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_economy

April - Record-low 91% of new university graduates get jobs

The employment rate of new university graduates at the April 1 start of fiscal 2011 edged down 0.7 percentage point from the year before to match the record-low 91.1 percent recorded in 2000, as the March 11 quake and tsunami hit employers' sentiment, the government said Tuesday. 


The rate for high school graduates as of March 31 rose 1.6 points to 93.2 percent overall, but dropped in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, the hardest hit by the natural disaster and subsequent nuclear crisis, by 3.3 points to 87.6 percent and by 2.4 points to 93.1 percent, respectively.

Corporate sentiment on employment was hit by the disaster and the resulting power shortages that affected businesses in the last stage of the recruitment season, an official of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.

Even among those who found jobs, 206 high school graduates and 139 university graduates had offers canceled as of May 18, according to a survey by the labor and education ministries.

A record-high 33,000 university graduates are estimated to have failed to find a job while an estimated 337,000 got jobs. The rate for men lost 1.0 point to 91.0 percent, while that for women was down 0.3 point to 91.2 percent.

About 170,000 high school graduates also entered companies, with the rate for men up 1.0 point to 95.1 percent and that for women up 2.4 points to 90.6 percent, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said.

The survey results are provisional, however, as the ministries failed to obtain data from six universities and colleges in quake-hit areas out of 112 selected from across the country, and from 10 schools in Iwate and Fukushima prefectures out of all high schools covered.


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NDFKBO0&show_article=1

Japanese Hostesses Unionize

The weakening conditions for Japanese consumer demand are having their impact on the lives of the "kyabajo" or night club hostesses in Japan, who are unionizing in an attempt to have the Japanese Labour Standards Bureau take their complaints about their treatment from owners more seriously.

The article reports that the high salaries and perceived lifestyle of the kyabajo have elevated working as a kyabajo to ranking within the top 10 jobs that high school girls aspire to - this results is more usually found in developing economies.

It remains to be seen whether the Japanese bureaucracy will take the side of the kyabajo against the owners of the kyabakura, who are often associated with the yakuza.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100113f1.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+japantimes+(The+Japan+Times%3A+All+Stories)&utm_content=Google+Reader